I am deeply saddened by the senseless violence at Santa Monica College. Reports have indicated that the shooter may have used an AR-15, the same military-style assault weapon also used by the shooters in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut.

This is the seventh mass shooting in the last year. Enough is enough. It's well past time that Congress take action to keep these dangerous weapons off our streets.

Waxman, a Democrat who appears to have a consistent record on gun control, says he'll support future legislation to limit access to kind of rifle cops say John Zawahri used to kill five people before he was gunned down by officers in the Santa Monica College library:

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this violence and their families. In the coming days and weeks, I will do all I can to pressure Congress to take up common-sense gun measures to fix our loophole-ridden gun laws and keep these violent weapons out of our communities.

Police said Zawahri was ready for a massacre: He was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and as many as 1,300 rounds; he wore a ballistic-style vest.

Starting at 11:52 a.m. Friday the suspect who would have been 24 on Saturday killed his father and brother before heading toward Santa Monica College, opening fire on traffic, and killing an SMC goundskeeper and his 26-year-old daughter as well as an elderly woman who collected recyclables on campus.

Four others, including a motorist who happened by the murder scene near the Zawahri family home in Santa Monica, and three people on-board a Santa Monica Big Blue Bus the suspect fired on, were injured.

At about 12:05 p.m., just 13 minutes after authorities received their first call of shots fired at the Zawahri home, the suspect was cut down by cops at Santa Monica College, police said.

L.A. Weekly staff writer Dennis Romero has worked on staff at several magazines and newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, where he participated in Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the L.A. riots. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone online, the Guardian, and, as a young stringer, the New York Times.